Orlando Terranova leading after day one at the 2015 Dakar RallyTwo MINI ALL4 Racing in the top five.
MINI has started the 2015 Dakar Rally with a stage win. Orlando Terranova (AR) and his co-driver Bernardo Graue (AR) in their MINI ALL4 Racing won the first stage of the 2015 Dakar Rally in South America.
Nasser Al-Attiyah/Mathieu Baumel (QT/FR) in the MINI ALL4 Racing had originally won the stage but were later penalized and are now down in seventh place overall.
The MINI duo Joan “Nani” Roma/Michel Périn (ES/FR), who won last year’s edition of the Dakar Rally, stopped ten kilometres into the stage and had to be towed to the bivouac by the service truck.
On day one the competitors had to cover a total of 833 kilometres which lead from Buenos Aires (AR) to Villa Carlos Paz (AR). They had to tackle a challenging first special stage after Saturday’s opening ceremony in the capital of Buenos Aires (AR). The start of the stage was located at the river delta of the Rio de la Plata right outside of Buenos Aires. The stage was a mixture of fast gravel sections and tight 90 degrees bends in the Argentinean countryside.
Krzysztof Holowczyc/Xavier Panseri (PL/FR) in the MINI ALL4 Racing are currently in a strong fourth position overall. The Dutch duo Erik van Loon/Wouter Rosegaar are also in the top ten with their MINI ALL4 Racing car. They are currently in ninth position overall.
On Monday the competitors will face one of the toughest challenges of the whole Dakar Rally. Leg 2 (Villa Carlos Paz/San Juan) will include the longest special stage of the whole event – 518 kilometres in total. The stage will be held on hard terrain followed by dusty sections, dried river beds as well as a sandy stretch with high dunes and very fine sand to the finish.
Overall classification after leg 1 (Top 5).
01 Terranova/Graue - MINI ALL4 Racing - 1:13:12h02 Gordon/Campbell - 1:13:54h03 De Villiers/Von Zitzewitz - 1:14:02h04 Holowczyc/Panseri – MINI ALL4 Racing - 1:14:06h05 Spataro/Lozada - 1:14:08h
Coming up.
Day 2 (05 January 2015).Start/finish: Villa Carlos Paz/San Juan (Leg 2)Total distance: 625 km, Special stage: 518 km, Liaison: 107 kmMINI ALL4 Racing 2015 Dakar Rally Lineup.Monster Energy Rally Raid Team.#300 Nani Roma/Michel Périn (ES/FR)#305 Orlando Terranova/Bernardo „Ronnie“ Graue (AR/AR)#306 Krzysztof Holowczyc/Xavier Panseri (PL/FR)X-raid Team.#310 Vladimir Vasilyev/Konstantin Zhiltsov (RU/RU)#314 Erik van Loon/Wouter Rosegaar (NL/NL)#319 Boris Garafulic/Filipe Palmeiro (CL/PT)#329 Aidyn Rakhimbayev/Anton Nikolaev (KZ/RU)#332 Zhou Yong/Andreas Schulz (CN/DE)#334 Stephan Schott/Holm Schmidt (DE/DE)
Qatar Rally Team.#301 Nasser Al-Attiyah/Mathieu Baumel (QT/FR)
